"AudioCopy is a free iPad app that makes it easy to record and share audio files. To use AudioCopy simply open the app, tap the red record button, and start talking. You can use the app to trim the end and beginning of your recording and normalize sound fluctuations. Your finished recording can be published to SoundCloud or any of the 197 apps that are compatible with AudioCopy."

I just 'test drove' this online application - it was very fast and accurately caught my spelling errors. As a basic tool for students, I think it is, or will be, one that they can use before they turn to the writing tutors. I don't advocate trying to replace professional writing tutors with this (or any other) online tool, but it would certainly reduce the number of common errors made in student writings.

Since it is a free service, I would recommend educators consider giving it a test drive in their writing courses to determine whether or not any value is added in doing so. While there are plenty of word processing tools avialble for students to use in order to hone in on their writing, this one is free and seems to adequately, and quickly, perform the basics.

Not really an endorsement, as much as a recommendation for other to consider testing for themselves.

Many studies have addressed the issue of identifying the different dimensions of culture. In the presentations concerning culture by Madlin Reck and Anne Tornow the ways in which national culture may influence management processes, including Hofstede’s dimensions of culture have been discussed extensively (Luthans & Doh, 2012).

The Kite Runner was set in the years 1975-2001. Everything during these years went from being peaceful, to bad, to even worse. The Taliban during these fateful years have taken control of Afghanistan and its government. They were thought of as heroes to the people of their once peaceful country, but their way of controlling their government is sadistic. In the present, they are even involved in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

During 1975, Afghanistan was a quiet place to live. There were economic hardships, but the residents of this pleasant country got through it. Kabul is the capital city of Afghanistan. It had the most economy problems in the country. Most of them were poverty difficulties. The president of this country at the time was Daoud Khan. Then, when winter came along, resistance towards communists began. Amir from The Kite Runner even knew of these communist attempts to rule his country. “Huddled together in the dining room and waiting for the sun to rise, none of us had any notion that a way of life had ended.” (Hosseini 36). The Afghan Islamist part of the resistance was favored by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States instead of the Afghan traditionalist and royalist parts. The uprising has just begun for the communist takeover in Afghanistan.

In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Even Amir from The Kite Runner even knew about this before it all happened. “And then in December 1979, when Russian tanks would roll into the very same streets where Hassan and I played, bringing the death of the Afghanistan I knew”(Hosseini 36) The Taliban during this time were thought of as refugees and were part of a resistance movement to expel the Russian troops from their country. The United States and Pakistan provided financial and military support so the Afghans could win against the Soviet soldiers. Despite the fact that there were civilians in Kabul, the Afghans did not care and used missiles, provided by the United States, to drop on the city resulting in civilian casualties and killed Soviet troops. In 1989, Ahmed Shah Massoud, took over Kabul as new leader. They ended up overthrowing President Sayid Mohammed Najibullah, who headed the Afghan government. In 1994, the Taliban were more powerful because Pakistan favored them and did everything in their power to support them. “Pakistan support for the Taliban is based on strong religious and ethnic bonds between the Taliban and Pakistan” (Amghar, Web 6). The militants of the Taliban are Sunni Muslim Pashtuns. They are thirteen percent of Pakistan’s population. They are basically most of the Taliban in general.

In 1996, Osama Bin Laden moved from Sudan to Afghanistan and met with Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban’s leader. “Bin Laden was involved in the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998” (Amghar, Web 6). On September 11th, 2001, Bin laden prompted the bombing of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. This resulted in the United States asking the Taliban to immediately hand over Bin Laden. General Pervez Musharraf, president of Pakistan, told the U.S. that he would support the capturing of Bin Laden. Instead, they couldn’t take down Bin Laden and Al Qaeda because of the ethnic and religious ties with the Taliban. Basically, Pakistan let the Taliban do what like to the people in there cites by robbing them and raping women. “The Taliban were exceedingly ignorant, which made them cruel” (Arbabzadah, Web 1). The Taliban used to be heroes to the people of the country, but now they are just plain evil. In The Kite Runner, Amir’s friend Farid said the Taliban would look for any excuse for violence. Amir bought a fake beard because it is considered a sin to shave and that all men should have beards. He saw Kabul during this time and was unfamiliar with it as it is not how it used to be when he was a kid. Afghanistan is just plagued by the Taliban with no hope for escape.

In conclusion, the Taliban before, after, and now are a deadly force to reckon with. I have to say that religion has a strong connection with them as they think of most things as sins. Amir from The Kite Runner depicts Afghanistan as a peaceful state. Now, he thinks of it as a wasteland that is ruled by a stubborn government with a false sense of religion. In my opinion, as much as I hate the Taliban, they must be removed from Afghanistan and Pakistan because they can cause a lot of trouble for those countries and can stir up many civil wars within those countries.

"I just learned through our colleagues in TeachThought about this interesting list featuring 15 iPad apps to create books. The list was created by Meg Wilson . Of course the word 'book' here is, more or less, used metaphorically to mean small to medium size writing projects. These are projects you can do with your students in class or ones that can span the entire semester or even school year. Book Creator and Book Writer are my favourite apps in this list and some of the apps included here are also new to me which is not surprising giving the rapidity with which apps are developed and created each day."

FYI: Apple officially released iOS7, the latest operating system for the iPhone and iPad, on September 18. Almost simultaneously, Stanford began offering a course teaching students how to design apps in the new environment.

This Top-Pick List Friday, we are looking games and apps that help students stay organized. These tools will help students stay on top of their assignments, keep their notes in one place, and create multimedia presentations.

"How to take a screenshot on iPad ? This is a question I have been asked so very often and the only answer I have is the traditional way I have always been using on my iPad 4. I have tried some apps before but they turned out rubbish so no need to share them here and until a good screenshooting app appears here is the easy way to snap a copy of what your iPad screen is displaying, this could be a picture from a blog post or news article, part of an email, an app you want to show others...you name it. Here is how to do it:"

"One of the most popular categories of apps on any touch enabled mobile devices is obviously educational apps thanks to the real time, ready-in-hand help students get from them in and outside of their classroom. While there are millions of free educational apps, all of them are not worthy enough for downloading. Secondly, most of the top tier feature rich apps are either not free or offer a much downgraded ‘free’ version that offer a user experience far removed from what they provide in ‘paid’ version. So, finding a handful of free and useful education apps on diverse contents requires some amount of research and that is exactly what we help you to do here. Here below we are introducing 10 free education apps for iPad."

"Green screen is one of the best learning tools in our learning commons. Our students are really making their learning come alive by recording video using the green screen.

DoInk has just released a new Green Screen App for the iPad. It is an easy to use App that allows you create green screen in one shot, rather than edit it using iMovie or another video editing application."

"This week I started introducing my 4th and 5th grade STEM students to coding with the free iPad app, Hopscotch. I was not able to find a set of “challenges” with Hopscotch to use in my lessons, so I wrote and published a short eBook that I’ve titled, “Hopscotch Challenges.” You can download it (FREE) in ePUB format from my DropBox account. Please check it out, share feedback as comments here or on Twitter (@wfryer), and submit additional ideas for challenges to add to the eBook using the Google form I included in it.

"Further recognition of the massive adoption of iPad by so many schools around the world, Apple have just launched two new sections on their iPad App Store. One section is aimed at teachers and parents with apps for the children, broken down in to different age groups and learning activities. "

Good, but for teachers in New Zealand the curriculum and professional development still needs to be connecged to these resources. Teachers can do this, of course, but wouldn't it be nice if there were some resources available which make those connections?

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